Raw Organic Cacao

Raw
Organic Cacao Beans and Nibs (Raw Chocolate)

ATTENTION:
If you purchase cacao online make sure you are buying the highest quality
organic raw cacao.
Our featured
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In fact we believe this is the best cacao produced currently in the
world. It is the best by every measure.
You can get whole cacao beans or peeled nibs (raw chocolate nibs).

Cacao TheobromaCacao is in the genus
Theobroma and species Cacao. Other common names include Chocolate, Cacao,
cacaoyer. The cacao bean is the seed of the fruit often thought of as
a culinary nut. Cacao beans that are certified organic and raw, dryed
at low temperature can be difficult to find. Raw organic cacao is high
quality cacao and can be used in raw food treats like smoothies, brownies
and pies. Cacao ground into a coarse powder can be made into tea and
used as a substitute for coffee or to drink at meals. Upon first trying
it the taste was slightly bitter like the first time you eat one of
those sundried peruvian olives. Then you try it again and love it. Now
it tastes better than the cooked chocolate. Any chocolate Goddess or
God will love this treat.

Cacao
contains a wide array of unique properties and minerals, including high
levels of sulfur and magnesium. It may increase your focus and alertness
and contains nutrients to keep you happy. Chocolate and cacao are often
associated with love. All this is due to phenylethylamine contained
in the cacao. Anandamide can be produced in the brain when we are feeling
great, cacao makes anandamide stick around longer. The cacao tastes
similar to, yet better than, unsweetened bakers chocolate. A sweetener
is often used like raw organic agave nectar in conjunction with your
raw treat ingredients.Chocolate is
made from the seeds of a plant called Theobroma cacao. The seeds are
dried and roasted and then processed to form cocoa, the basic ingredient
in chocolate and chocolate products. The use of cocoa for eating and
drinking probably dates back several thousand years. The first evidence
of cocoa use comes from cooking vessels containing cocoa residue. Scientists
have determined these pots to be from at least 460 to 480 A.D. Columbus
discovered cacao beans in America and sent samples back to King Ferdinand.
However, the beans didn't become popular in Europe at this time. Several
years later, Cortes discovered that the Mexican Aztecs enjoyed a type
of bitter chocolate drink containing burned and ground cacao beans,
maize, water, and spices. Cortes sent cacao beans and recipes back to
King Charles V. The Spanish refined some of the recipes adding sugar
and heating the ingredients to improve taste and texture. But because
of the high cost of imported cacao, chocolate beverages were enjoyed
mostly by the wealthy. By 1828, the cocoa press was developed. The press
enabled workers to extract cocoa butter from the cacao bean. Ground
roasted beans and sugar were added to the cocoa butter to produce dark
"eating" (solid) chocolate. The first commercially prepared dark chocolate
was produced in about 1847. Milk chocolate, made with the addition of
dried milk solids, was developed by the Swiss in about 1876. Some brands
of imported and domestic chocolate contain very refined chocolate and
fillings and are very expensive. Still, less expensive varieties of
chocolate are widely available -- making chocolate a very popular confection.
The average American consumes nearly 11 pounds of chocolate each year.
Men aged 12 to 19 consume the most amount of chocolate. Women aged 30
to 39 are the next largest group of chocolate consumers.

The
genuine cacao tree is a small and handsome evergreen tree, growing in
South America and the West Indies, from 12 to 25 feet high, and branching
at the top; when cultivated it is not allowed to grow so high. The stem
is erect, straight, 4 to 6 feet high; the wood light and white; the
bark thin, somewhat smooth, and brownish. The seeds are numerous, compressed,
1 inch long, reddish-brown externally, dark-brown internally, and imbedded
in a whitish, sweetish, buttery pulp.

This
tree was extensively cultivated in Mexico, Central and South America
for many years, indeed long before the discovery of America, and at
one time formed the currency of the natives, who made an immense consumption
of it in various ways. At present it is chiefly cultivated in Brazil,
Costa Rica, Guayaquil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Guatemala, the island
of Trinidad, and other West Indies Islands; also in Africa, Ceylon,
Samoa, and other parts of the globe.

For
some people, the lure of chocolate can be overwhelming. Cocoa contains
certain chemicals and sensory properties that make the product very
appealing. In spite of its physical properties, chocolate is not a physically
addictive food. However, some people may find themselves psychologically
addicted to chocolate. However, this may not be true for raw cacao.

Disclaimer: This site is for entertainment purposes
only. No medical advice is given. None of the authors are medical doctors.
The partners of rawcacao.com will not be liable for any effects related
to consuming cacao beans.

The
Story of Cacao

Chocolate begins with a bean ... a cacao bean. It has
been mashed and eaten for centuries. The history of chocolate spans
from 200 B.C. to the present, encompassing many nations and peoples
of our world. The scientific name of the cacao tree's fruit is "Theobroma
Cacao" which means "food of the gods." In fact, the cacao bean was worshipped
as an idol by the Mayan Indians over 2,000 years ago. In 1519, Hernando
Cortez tasted "Cacahuatt," a drink enjoyed by Montezuma II, the last
Aztec emperor. Cortez observed that the Aztecs treated cacao beans,
used to make the drink, as priceless treasures. He subsequently brought
the beans back to Spain where the chocolate drink was made and then
heated with added sweeteners. Its formula was kept a secret to be enjoyed
by nobility. Eventually, the secret was revealed and the drink's fame
spread to other lands. By the mid-1600s, the chocolate drink had gained
widespread popularity in France. One enterprising Frenchman opened the
first hot chocolate shop in London. By the 1700s, chocolate houses were
as prominent as coffee houses in England. The New World's first chocolate
factory opened in 1765 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Sixty years
later, Conrad Van Houten, a Dutch chemist, invented a cocoa press that
enabled confectioners to make chocolate candy by mixing cocoa butter
with finely ground sugar. In 1876, Daniel Peter, a Swiss candymaker,
developed milk chocolate by adding condensed milk to chocolate liquor
- the nonalcoholic by-product of the cocoa bean's inner meat. The Swiss
also gave the chocolate a smoother texture through a process called
"conching." The name was derived from a Greek term meaning "sea shell"
and refered to the shape of old mixing vats where particles in the chocolate
mixture were reduced to a fine texture.

The
Myth Of Cacao - Theobroma

"A myth I discovered from the northern Andes speaks of
the crucial role played by cacao in restoring the balance of nature
after a greedy being snatched all wealth for himself. The myth begins
with an omnipotent deity named Sibu who could grow animals and humans
from seeds. Sibu transferred his powers to another deity, Sura, giving
him all the precious seeds. Sura buried the seeds and left the site
for a brief period. Unfortunately, while he was away, a third deity,
a trickster named Jabaru dug up all the seeds and ate them, leaving
nothing for the creation-work of Sibu and Sura. When poor Sura returned,
the trickster Jabaru slit Sura's throat and buried him where the seeds
had been. Very pleased with himself, Jabaru left the scene and went
home to his wives. After a time, the trickster Jabaru passed by the
place again and saw that two strange trees had sprung up from poor Sura's
grave: a cacao tree and a calabash. The omnipotent deity Sibu stood
quietly beside the trees. When Sibu saw the trickster approaching, Sibu
asked him to brew him a cup of cocoa from the tree. Jabaru picked a
bean-filled pod and a calabash fruit and took them to his wives, who
brewed the cocoa and filled the hollowed out calabash shell with the
rich drink. Then the trickster Jabaru carried this vessel back to Sibu,
holding it out to him. They had on RawCacao.com website. "No, you drink
first," all-powerful Sibu insisted politely. Jabaru complied eagerly,
gulping down the delicious drink as fast as he could. But his delight
changed to agony as the cocoa born from poor Sura's body caused Jabaru's
belly to swell and swell until it burst wide open, spilling out the
stolen seeds all over the ground. Sibu then restored his friend Sura
to life again and returned the seeds to him so that all humans and animals
might one day grow from those precious seeds and enjoy Earth's bounty."

The
Beautiful Tree

The cacao tree is very delicate and sensitive. It needs
protection from wind and requires a fair amount of shade under most
conditions. This is true especially in its first two to four years of
growth. With pruning and careful cultivation, the trees of most strains
will begin bearing fruit in the fifth year. With extreme care, some
strains can be induced to yield good crops in the third and fourth years.
The cacao tree has large glossy leaves that are red when young and green
when mature. The tree sprouts thousands of tiny waxy pink or white five-petalled
blossoms that cluster together on the trunk and older branches. But
only 3 to 10 percent will go on to mature into full fruit. The fruit
has green or sometimes maroon coloured pods on the trunk of the tree
and its main branches. Shaped somewhat like an elongated melon tapered
at both ends, these pods often ripen into a golden colour or sometimes
take on a scarlet hue with multicoloured flecks. At its maturity, the
cultivated tree measures from 15 to 25 feet tall, though the tree in
its wild state may reach 60 feet or more. Handling the harvest The job
of picking ripe cacao pods is not an easy one. The tree is so frail
and its roots are so shallow that workmen cannot risk injuring it by
climbing to reach the pods on the higher branches. The planter sends
his pickers into the fields with long-handled, mitten-shaped steel knives
that can reach the highest pods and snip them without wounding the soft
bark of the tree. Machetes are used for the pods growing within reach
on the lower trunk. Gatherers follow the harvesters who have removed
the ripe pods from the trees. The pods are collected in baskets and
transported to the edge of a field where the pod breaking operation
begins. One or two length-wise blows from a well-wielded machete are
usually enough to split open the woody shells. A good breaker can open
500 pods an hour. A great deal of patience is required to complete harvesting.
Anywhere from 20 to 50 cream-coloured beans are scooped from a typical
pod and the husk and inner membrane are discarded. Dried beans from
an average pod weigh less than two ounces, and approximately 400 beans
are required to make one pound of chocolate. RawCacao.com is a great
site, right! Exposure to air quickly changes the cream-coloured beans
to a lavender or purple. They do not look like the finished chocolate
nor do they have the well-known fragrance of chocolate at this time.
The cocoa beans or seeds that are removed from the pods are put into
boxes or thrown on heaps and covered. Around the beans is a layer of
pulp that starts to heat up and ferment. Fermentation lasts from three
to nine days and serves to remove the raw bitter taste of cocoa and
to develop precursors and components that are characteristic of chocolate
flavour Drying the beans Like any moisture-filled fruit, the beans must
be dried if they are to keep. In some countries, drying is accomplished
simply by laying the beans on trays or bamboo matting and leaving them
to bask in the sun. When moist climate conditions interfere with sun-drying,
artificial methods are used. For example, the beans can be carried indoors
and dried by hot-air pipes. With favourable weather the drying process
usually takes several days. In this interval, farmers turn the beans
frequently and use the opportunity to pick them over for foreign matter
and flat, broken or germinated beans. During drying, beans lose nearly
all their moisture and more than half their weight. Once dried, the
beans can be sold. Buyers sample the quality of a crop by cutting open
a number of beans to see that they are properly fermented. Purple centres
indicate incomplete fermentation. The beans are sold in international
markets. African countries harvest about two-thirds of the total world
output; Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and Cameroon are the leading
African cocoa producers. Most of the remainder comes from South American
countries, chiefly Brazil and Ecuador. The crop is traded on international
commodity futures markets. Attempts by producing countries to stabilise
prices through international agreements have had little success.